Founder Of Go Daddy Shoots Down Elephant In Zimbabwe

Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons found much criticism on Thursday after posting a video online showing himself proudly killing an elephant in Zimbabwe.

Parsons posted the vacation video to his Arizona company’s website saying that it was the second consecutive year he has spent hunting “problem elephants.”

“Of everything I do, this is the most rewarding,” Parsons said in the video’s opening message. He justified his actions by saying it was eating a local farmer’s crops.

The group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said it is shifting its peta.org website away from Go Daddy and closing its account with the company.

“Parsons has killed at least one elephant and a leopard for his personal enjoyment,” PETA said at its website.

“Instead of coming up with flimsy excuses for killing these highly intelligent and social animals, Parsons should use his wealth to fund humane solutions to human-elephant conflicts.”

The founder of the website domain hosting firm also faced some criticism on his personal blog.

“I will start by saying that godaddy.com is the best company in your field that I have ever worked with,” an Arizona man wrote in a message in a chat forum at Parsons blog.

“I am faced with a decision though… There’s nothing you can write here that will make it okay with me that you go to Africa and shoot elephants,” he continued. “I believe it is wrong on so many levels.”

Rival website name registration service Namescheap.com is giving discounts to people who transfer their online addresses from Go Daddy, as well as donating money to savetheelephants.org.

“It’s not often that we would disagree publicly with a competitor, but we at Namescheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport,” Tamar Weinberg of Namescheap said in an online message.

“We’ve decided to throw our support behind our elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.”